trapping brigade of any size would have them more than one fire.
The more Titus stared down at that faraway, solitary point of light, the more it fed his imagination, and his misgivings. Perhaps a wandering war party. After all, it was late spring, wasn’t it? Likely that the Blackfoot were moving about by now—no matter what Silas Cooper and any of those more experienced in such things might have to say on the matter.
“C’mon, girl,” he said in a hush to the mule as he clambered onto her broad back. “We got us news to tell.”
That night he led the others back to the meadow and rocky outcrop, where they all four gazed down at the faraway valley floor and that distant flicker of light.
“This far off—a man cain’t tell just what made that fire,” Cooper warned. “Could be a white man or a red nigger.”
“Hell, we can’t tell, Silas,” Hooks added.
Frustrated, Bass said, “If you fellas can tell me you know of a Injun what rides off by hisself alone—I’m ready to listen.”
Turning on Scratch, Cooper demanded, “Spit out what you’re trying to say.”
“I spent me a winter with them Utas, and ’nother winter with the Crow,” Titus explained. “Not once did I see a solitary Injun from neither band of ’em go out all on his own. Did any of you?”
“Nope, I didn’t,” Tuttle agreed.
Silas had turned to look back at the far flicker, but Billy reluctantly said, “Not me neither, Scratch. You’re right, dammit. Injuns don’t travel alone—like a white man does.”
“No great shakes, fellas. If’n its more’n one, cain’t be all that many if they got ’em just one fire,” Cooper tried to reassure them as he studied the darkness.
“But, Silas: it don’t take much of a fire to keep warm twice as many as we are,” Tuttle declared, his eyes filling with the first hint of dread.
“Maybe three times as many,” Scratch admitted. “Them Injuns don’t make big fires. And there ain’t no telling how big that fire is anyway, Silas.”
“How’s that?” Cooper demanded.
Pointing, Bass said, “Hell—we don’t even know how far off that fire is … so how’s any of us to say just how big a fire it is?”
“We best be clearing out,” Tuttle warned.
“Come morning’s soon enough,” Cooper stated flatly.
Billy nodded, his ready grin gone beneath the silver-pale moonshine. “Morning’s soon enough, Bud.”
Upon returning to their camp they nonetheless snuffed out their fire and decided upon a rotation of guards that would keep one man awake until it was light enough to pack up, load the animals, and start on their backtrail east.
“A damn shame too,” Hooks grumbled as the other three settled into their blankets there in the cold darkness. “The trapping in this country was some punkins too.”
“Ain’t that the way it’s bound to be for a man?” Tuttle moaned, rising on an elbow.
“We done ourselves good anyway,” Cooper said, lying still in his blankets. “I’d care to bet there ain’t four other trappers in all these here mountains what have near the plews we got in our packs already.”
“Ain’t that so!” Hooks exclaimed, pounding a knee and nearly toppling his cup of lukewarm coffee drained from the pot before the fire went out. “Just imagine the look gonna be on that trader’s face when we come rolling into ronnyvoo come summer, boys!”
“Yeah,” Tuttle cheered in the hush of their quiet voices. “We four gonna be kings of ronnyvoo!”
“Cocks of the walk, I’d wager!” Hooks continued. “Ain’t nothing we cain’t buy. Ain’t a squaw we cain’t hang with foofaraw and girlews. Why, we’ll stay drunk all the time!”
“Right from the first day till the last,” Bass said, joining in their imagined revelry. It felt good to shake off the fear and misgivings the way old Tink would shake water off herself after crossing a stream. “We gonna drink ourselves sick on trader’s rum every day, ain’t we, Silas?”
For some time Cooper didn’t answer. Long enough that Billy finally prodded, “Silas? You ’sleep?”
“No. Just been thinking more on ronnyvoo … and what the four of us ought’n do about all these plews.”
“What you mean—what we ought’n do?” Tuttle asked there in the dark as the satin-colored moon settled down on the tops of the pines to the west of their camp.
“We ain’t never had near this many beaver, have we?”
Billy replied, “We ain’t never had four of us afore, Silas. And Scratch here been working his ever-livin’ ass off since winter.”
“That’s the natural truth,” Tuttle added.
“So what you got on your mind?” Bass asked the question that for months now had gone unanswered as he slowly sat up and crossed his legs under the buffalo robe.
“H’ain’t so sure no more we should be making for ronnyvoo with these’r furs come summer,” Cooper admitted as he kicked the blankets off his legs, sat up himself, and brought a robe around his shoulders. “Not so sure we should wait till summer to sell ’em neither.”
“Why not?” Hooks inquired. “Summer ain’t no time for trapping beaver.”
From the darkness Cooper explained, “But by then every swinging dick in these here mountains is selling his plews to the trader coming out from St. Louie.”
“So if we don’t sell to the trader come high summer,” Scratch began with keen curiosity, “just what you got in mind for us to do?”
“Sell before the summer,” Cooper stated flatly.
“Hell, Silas—Ashley and his bunch ain’t gonna be back till high summer!” Tuttle argued.
“I don’t figger to have nothing to do with any of ’em,” Cooper admitted.
Growing more intrigued, Titus asked, “If I follow your thinking—we figger to sell our plews early, and we don’t figger on waiting for no trader tromping west from St. Louie … then where we gonna take all this beaver we got in these here packs?”
“Down the river, boys.”
“What?” Hooks asked, his voice rising. “You cain’t tell me we’re gonna cross that prerra?”
“No, Billy—I said
“That’s gonna be a bit of a ride for us,” Bass declared as he thought on it. “But I s’pose it can be done.”
Then Cooper admitted, “That’s something else I been working over in my head too.”
“Sounds to me you been doing more thinking since winter than I do in a hull year!” Hooks told Cooper.
“Ain’t no doubt of that, Billy!” Tuttle cried with a snort.
Titus prodded, “So tell us what you been cogitating on about this long ride, Silas.”
“No ride a’tall. Simple as that.”
Billy asked, “Then how the hell you ’spect us get downriver?”
“We float.”
“F-float?” Hooks said with his head bobbing. “What’s a man to float in, Silas? You don’t ’spect us to just ride our plews on down, do you?”
“Way I figger it, this time of year,” Cooper explained, “fast as the water’s rising—a man can float downriver least twice as fast as he can ride a horse following beside that same river.”
The three others sat quiet for some time, clearly in their own thoughts, weighing the merits of that comparison on their own, until Scratch spoke first.
“Makes a lot of sense, it do, Silas,” he admitted. “You cover twice as much ground in the same time it’d take us to tramp across it on horse.”
“Maybe faster,” Cooper injected.
“Maybe faster,” Titus agreed with the appraisal. “You thinking of going down the Yallerstone?”
“Yup.”
“But—where’s that gonna put you to trade on the river?”
“Maybe nowhere,” Silas answered, “… until we reach the mouth of the Bighorn.”
Scratch asked, “What’s there?”
